What Is The Goal? [CBD]

A long time ago I was assigned a novel to read. Considering that this was a business class I was a little puzzled, but it turned out to be a rather good way of teaching the simple yet almost universally ignored concept that success comes only when the goal of the endeavor is understood. Cleverly, the book was called The Goal.

So what is the goal of the conservative movement? The pat answer is that the goal should be to elect a conservative president whose political philosophy is in line with that of the Founders, so that the vast bureaucratic state can be rolled back and the country can begin its return to one that is governed by a limited, tightly controlled central government, and power returned to the states.

And that's not a criticism. It's what I want and believe, but at least for the medium term it is untenable.

We need to shift our goal from the positive and rather heartening idea of a conservative president to the bare-knuckled and no-holds-barred goal of defeating the Left. The Democrat party has morphed from a left-leaning but essentially patriotic group with a small fringe of hard-core progressives to its current concatenation of Liberation Theology, Globalism, racial and gender politics, committed socialists and rabid anti-free-speech radicals.

And they are ruthless in enforcing their orthodoxy. Just ask Matt Lauer or Juan Williams. The Left was quite willing to destroy their own to encourage the others. And look how easily they cow supposedly principled conservatives. The list is too long and depressing.

We have to take the gloves off and accept that we are in a brawl. Not an elegant Marquess of Queensberry outing on the lawn, but a fight for our lives and the future of our country.

America has survived mediocre presidents, both on the left and on the right. So accepting a milquetoast president who does not possess the conservative bona fides that we all want might be the strategically clever move. The White House isn't the only fight...the Left has opened fronts everywhere (speaking of long and depressing lists). But...we have to fight everywhere else!

Obviously many of us fight the good fight in places like local school boards and town council elections and PTA meetings. That's where the change will occur.

But we should accept a sub-optimal President if we can rock the left back on its heels. And that (I think) requires a change in our perspective. Even when we go on the offensive and win, we rarely protect our gains. The Left fights the Long War, and never accepts defeat. We fight tactical battles then move on, while the Left waits for the next opportunity to refight the last battle. And they eventually win.

Take the gloves off and kick them when they are down*...that's how they fight, and so should we. Andrew Breitbart was a master at this, in part because he attacked the left wherever he saw them, and was unafraid of their response. But there are others who fight and win....maybe not with the panache of Breitbart, but with the same goal.

*Mixed metaphor alert.

[This is sort of mushy and unstructured. Mostly because I am unsure how to describe the difference between trying to win, and trying to defeat the left. Sorry]